by Traci Hall
He parked in front of the house, and Matthew ran around the side lawn to greet him. The dogs were in the fenced part of the yard away from the rancher.
“Hey! Emma said you might come. We’re spitting watermelon seeds—Aunt Pepita is winning. She’s got a space between her teeth.” Matthew tapped his front tooth. “Pretty cool, huh?”
Jackson chuckled. “Pretty cool.”
Matthew raced ahead, and Jackson rounded the back of the house, then stopped in surprise. The front was nice. Well-kept. Seventies rancher, long driveway. Garage to the side, with a chain-link-fenced lawn. Just as he remembered.
But the backyard was spectacular—like something in a city garden. About twenty yards away, a fountain that had to be six feet across with a stone cherub in the center spewed water into the air that landed in the basin below.
To his left, a bramble patch of blackberries was woven against a trellis. He recognized tomato plants, zucchini, and pumpkin in the garden beyond. Birdhouses nestled in pine trees or attached to wooden poles attracted blue jays and sparrows that darted back and forth. Butterflies fluttered around the tall lupines and sweet peas. Two fat orange felines lounged with flicking tails on the back porch.
He turned to walk up the three wooden steps to the screened back porch, where a picnic table with a red and white checked cloth was loaded down with sliced melon, a platter of sandwiches, a bowl of potato chips, and a pitcher of iced tea.
“Jackson! Welcome.”
“Looks like I arrived just in time,” he said, his stomach growling at the homey display. He patted his flat belly.
The wrinkled woman with bright orange hair and glasses stood from the picnic bench she’d been sitting on. “Come here, Jackson. What do you think of the backyard? I started planting and just couldn’t stop. Retirement blessed me with a green thumb.”
He stepped forward, and the old woman pulled him into a hug. “It’s so nice to see you again,” he said against her poof of hair.
She leaned back, one gnarled hand on his shoulder for balance, gesturing to the long wooden bench with her other. “Have a seat. Is tea okay? I can get you water or put on a pot of coffee.”
Emma nudged open the back kitchen door with her hip, holding a plastic tray with plates, silverware, and cups.
She saw him, and her pink mouth stretched into a welcoming smile, her guileless face the sweetest thing he’d seen in a very long time. Emma hadn’t changed in that she was still kind, still beautiful, and still not for him.
“Hey,” she said. “I was hoping you’d make it. Your nephew is a champion in the yard-cleaning department.”
Nice. He looked at Matthew, who shrugged as if shy but was obviously pleased.
“I promised him some fun this afternoon.” She stood before Jackson, and he knew her to be five feet, eight inches to his even six feet. “I thought we’d reinforce what I’ve been going over with the dogs—some simple hand controls.”
“How is that an ESTD thing?” he asked, straddling the bench. He hadn’t forgotten her passion as she’d shared the story about the woman on the plane.
“It’s not just for that. Who doesn’t like a trained dog?” She set the tray down and offered him silverware wrapped in a cloth napkin. “Stay, sit, roll over. Do the dishes.”
“I can see how that last command would be a winner.” He ruffled the bristles of his hair. “Do you place all the dogs you train?”
“So far, yes. Our longest trainee is Lulu. Beagles are not as popular a breed as they once were.” She held up her hand. “Don’t get me started on the designer dog craze. It’s always been around, but thanks to the internet, styles go viral. Next thing you know, the shelter is filled with Chihuahuas—after the Taco Bell commercials, remember? And then everybody wanted a Pomeranian when Boo pictures went viral on Facebook.”
She looked ready to take up the fight. Champion for the underdog, literally. Seemed she’d grown up since their orphan days. Him, too.
“The problem is that I don’t have enough space to grow Heart to Heart Kennel. I’d love to have a no-kill dog shelter where I can take in hundreds of dogs, make sure they find good homes.” Like she was already doing, but on a larger scale, he thought.
Aunt Pepita stirred sugar into her tea. “Our Emma is going to have her own practice for people someday, too.”
“Pep,” Emma said with a warning expression. “Not if I don’t get my thesis done.” She turned to Jackson. “My professor is turning up the heat. But enough about that. Are you hungry?”
He shifted on the bench seat, gesturing to the food. “This spread looks amazing.”
Pepita sipped her tea, nodding with satisfaction. “Just a little something. Emma reminded me that you liked my chicken salad. I am so sorry about your sister. But we sure are glad to know your nephew. Did you ever get married, Jackson?”
Jackson poured icy cold tea into a glass. “No.” He set the pitcher down on the table and nodded to Emma. “Can I pour you some?”
“No, I already have one somewhere…” Emma looked around and then reached across to the porch railing and picked up her glass of tea, cubes of ice clinking. “There.”
“Emma was Matty’s age, well, a few years older, when she came to live with me.” Pepita gave him a knowing look over the top of her orange-framed glasses. “Kids are resilient, and no matter what happens, you just love him, and he’ll be okay.”
“Well, the hospital is doing all they can to make sure Livvie is on the mend.” He appreciated that neither woman pried with further questions, as if sensing that he was on the edge and didn’t have answers. Jackson breathed in. He’d forgotten how nice it could be, sittin’ on the back porch and enjoying the summer sun—sitting next to a beautiful auburn-haired girl.
Emma handed him a paper plate. “Help yourself.” She called out to the yard where Matthew was petting one of the orange cats. “Lunch is ready, Matty.”
He ran up the wooden steps to the screened back porch, more at ease than Jackson had seen since the accident. Fresh air and sunshine were just what the doctor ordered—for them both.
“You can wash over there,” Emma said, pointing to the large tub sink at the far end of the deck. “More lemonade, Matthew?”
“Yes, please,” he said, turning on the water and using the bar of soap without any hints from Jackson. He dried his hands on a paper towel and then sat on the bench next to Aunt Pepita.
Jackson felt the brush of Emma’s arm as she reached across his shoulder to refill Matty’s plastic tumbler. Her sweet perfume blended with the flowers in the garden, her body mere inches away.
His attraction roared to life. She’d always been in his heart, but she’d made it very clear this morning that the past was just that—ancient history.
The casual banter at the picnic table was easy to flow in and out of as they all ate watermelon and chicken salad with chilled green peas. Matthew was eating without complaint. Weird kid. Jackson had learned to eat anything and be grateful for it, but veggies still weren’t his first choice.
Emma reached for her drink and accidentally bumped his elbow. Cool tea spilled onto the table between them. “Oops, sorry, Jackson! Did I get you?”
“No.” He wouldn’t have minded if she had doused him. Her reddish-brown hair had streaks of gold in the shaded light of the covered porch, and her skin, lightly freckled, seemed soft. Jackson quickly pulled his gaze away from her rosy lower lip and bit into his sandwich.
“Uncle Jackson,” Matthew said from across a bowl of watermelon. “Sometimes Emma takes the dogs to the park at the beach. Isn’t that cool?”
“It is.” He swallowed and dabbed at his mouth, turning to Emma. “Do you take all eight dogs at once?”
She shook her head, her hazel eyes bright. “I’m not that brave. My max is four at a time, though usually fewer. I was wondering if Monday I could bring Matthew with me? He’d be a big help with the leashes.”
Jackson’s first response was to say no. They couldn’t get embroiled in Emma’s
world—they didn’t belong. She was smart, a shrink. He was a high school graduate with sharpshooter skills destined for military life. The past was not always the past.
He knew the scent of her skin, had memorized the texture of her hair. “Friends” would never be enough, not when Emma made him want it all. She always had. So much so, it was scary.
He was sure she’d be long gone by now, kicking Kingston’s dust off her heels, but she hadn’t even left for college.
Even so, he was headed back overseas in a few weeks.
Emma nudged him with her arm and winked, long auburn lashes fluttering, and he remembered her “butterfly” kisses against his cheek. “You can check my driving record. Nothing spotty.”
He cleared his thick throat. “What makes you think I didn’t do that already?” It had been part of the public record when he’d searched, not even a parking ticket.
“Really, Jackson?” Emma took a drink of tea.
The table quieted as three sets of eyes turned to him, waiting.
“Fine. Next week you can go to the dog park with Emma. But I gotta say, Matty, this doesn’t feel much like a punishment.”
Chapter Six
After lunch was over, Pepita volunteered to do dishes. Matty asked Jackson to stay for a while, and Emma turned to Jackson with a daring grin. “Want to see what my dogs can do?”
“I’m curious,” he said. “It looks like you’ve built something pretty great here.” Matty darted down the stairs of the porch to the grass.
“If you have the afternoon free?” Emma wasn’t sure what Jackson was doing with his days, and she’d hate to impose.
“Yeah. I took a month of leave so I can be here with Matty and help Livvie. I’ve been filling in at Mitch’s auto shop in exchange for use of the truck and bike.” He went down the wooden stairs, his boots on the lawn. “Mitch says to tell you hi.”
“Same.” She’d seen Mitch around Kingston, but she didn’t really socialize unless it was something to do with her pups. They headed to the chain link fence that separated the lawn with the dogs’ yard and the shaded field where she had some agility equipment set up: an adjustable slide, a crawling tube, and various bales of hay for climbing and jumping.
Matthew twisted his baseball cap backward on his head. “This is a way better playset than I ever had.”
“I never had one.” Her mom’s fear of leaving the apartment had included a fear of public spaces, which meant that while Emma could look at the park across the street, she wasn’t allowed to play in it.
“No swings or anything?” Matthew asked in disbelief. He looked to Jackson as if she had to be joking, but Jackson knew. He’d been the first and only man she’d ever opened up to about those dark times.
Jackson put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
She quickly moved away from his offer of comfort. “I survived. Anyway, it was fun putting this together.” She’d talked to a couple of dog trainers to get an idea of what would be beneficial. “You might meet Sawyer Rivera—he’s a high-ranking dog trainer in Seattle.”
“What does that mean?” Matty scooped up a tennis ball from the grass.
“He’s the best. I persuaded him to add our shelter to his roster, and he promised that if I get this grant, he’ll help me with the optimal design for my shelter.”
They strolled past two different-sized barrels. “These are for jumping. But it’s not all about physical activities,” she said. “I want the dogs to use their brains to problem solve.” She pointed to the three-foot-high maze she’d built with changeable gates so she could switch the tracks. “I’m working with some of the dogs, Pedro and Bandit, on how to communicate via flashes of light, like Morse code, but way simpler.”
“What’s that?” Matty tossed the ball up in the air and caught it.
Emma sighed, reaching back into her own mind for an easy explanation. “Back in the way old days, before the internet and telephone…”
Matthew laughed. “The really old days.”
“People communicated through telegraph, signals carried by light or sound in a short code. You could ask your uncle about it, I bet. They probably still use it in the military.”
“A secret code?” He glanced at Jackson.
Jackson snagged the ball from the air when Matty tossed it again. “I’m not telling. It’s secret for a reason, bud.”
“Hey!” Matty laughed but wasn’t actually upset. “When can we start?”
“Soon as we finish going over the equipment.” She showed him the plastic slide that could be adjusted to different heights. “Even Cinnamon can go down it.”
“It’s like they’re training to be in the circus,” Jackson said. Now that he had the yellow ball, he didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
“A little.” She handed Matty a metal clicker the size of his pinky and offered one to Jackson, who shook his head.
“We use these in training—you can keep this one. We click to affirm a correct behavior instead of verbal communication, for folks who might not be able to speak clearly. Like someone who has suffered a stroke that affected their speech.”
“Okay.” Matty studied the clicker, holding it carefully.
“Romeo is the newest, and he likes you, so he might try to suck up. You have to be firm, and if you give him an order to stay, he has to stay, or he won’t be able to participate.”
Matthew nodded with a serious expression. “Got it.”
Emma headed toward the kennel. “All right then. Let’s wake them up from nap time.”
Matthew snickered and stuck his hands in his front shorts’ pockets. “Nap time. Dogs don’t need naps.”
“Of course they do,” Emma said, sharing a smile with Jackson. “It’s hard work, being an Emotional Support Therapy Dog. There are different types of dogs, just like there are different kinds of people.” She patted her heart. “These guys feel emotions for others at a deeper level. It’s called empathy. Like when Romeo laid his nose on your leg last week. He felt you were sad.”
Matthew put his hand over his own heart.
“That was his way of sharing your sadness and offering comfort in the best way he knew how.”
Jackson stayed with them, listening. That was something she’d always liked about him—he never had to be the center of what was going on.
She opened the door to the air-conditioned kennel and turned on the lights. The pups woofed in greeting. “Show time! Jackson, do you mind doing the heavy lifting? We’ve got to create a maze with the bales of hay.”
“Nope.” He brushed a hair back from her temple in a gesture that he might have done a long time ago. “Once things are set up, I can go on a slushie run.”
Jackson’s soft touch made Emma shiver despite the heat.
“Yes!” Matty said. “Blue raspberry.”
She looked at the boy and shook her head. “Your lips will be blue for days.”
“I don’t care.” He rubbed his tummy. “It tastes soooo good.”
She smiled at Jackson. “Do they still have cola flavor?”
“Oh yeah. That used to be your favorite.”
“Good memory.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about you, Emma Mercer.”
She gently pushed him toward the hay bales before she did something stupid like confess that she remembered him, too. Chocolate or vanilla? Jackson was vanilla. Beach or mountains? He was beach.
Emma or the military? He’d chosen the Marines.
Now he effortlessly lugged the hay from the garage outside, and she had to pull her focus from Jackson to the dogs, who waited patiently to start their games.
“Okay…” Deep breath in, deep exhale. “Let’s start on the end with Romeo.”
…
Jackson had been gone for less than an hour on a slushie run and now had a carrier stashed in a small cooler to keep the treats from melting.
He rode down the long, shaded drive to the yellow rancher at the end, listening to Pearl Jam. They’d had a great time
at lunch and setting up the agility course. Jackson realized that Emma was in her element, training these dogs with firm boundaries and lots of treats. She had an easy way with Matty that Jackson liked, and he could see her with a houseful of kids in addition to her beloved dogs.
He parked, pulled the keys from the motorcycle’s ignition, and stuffed them into his front jeans’ pocket. Emma and Matthew were in the far field with the dogs. He spied Pepita, sitting on a bale of hay as she gave orders to the mutts. It looked like chaos.
He picked up the small cooler and let himself in the gate, carefully closing it behind him. Watching his step, as warned—eight dogs, what could you do—he made his way to the group.
Bandit kept his eye on Jackson, though he didn’t leave the other dogs. They didn’t rush around him as he walked up. Too busy playing. Or was this work?
Pepita blew an old-fashioned metal whistle. The shrill blast made everyone freeze, including Matthew, who had dirt on his knees, a bruise on his cheek, and a grin on his face.
The women greeted him with smiles, but the attention was focused on the game.
Pepita tooted the whistle, and they all crawled forward. She blew it again, and they stopped.
“Pedro, you were last. Come.” Emma snapped her fingers and the dog joined Lulu, King, and Romeo next to Pepita’s bale of hay. Pedro lowered his head as if in shame and gave a low woof.
“What’s he saying?” Jackson asked Emma.
Emma had pulled her auburn hair back into a ponytail. “He wants to play again. Pedro is a sore loser. Matthew, however, is a champ. The dogs love that he’s in the game.”
The Chihuahua inched forward along the trampled grass without the whistle.
Emma pointed and snapped her fingers. “Sweetie, I saw that. Come.”
Sweetie, tail between his legs, joined them on the sidelines. Bandit barked, and the dogs stilled. Readied.
“Is he the boss?” Jackson asked. The dog had a lean, muscled body, and the tail reminded him a bit of his own childhood dog. Goldie. He hadn’t thought about Goldie in years.
“Bandit? He thinks he is,” Emma answered with a shake of her head. “But I get to be the boss.” Jackson thought she made a very sexy team captain.
